Art And Time

I remember a discussion about how to force a spectator to spend preferably more time in front of a work of art. There were the most fantastic suggestions, but eventually nothing can or should force anybody. Later in 1997 in Venice I came across a work of art that actually was designed with this in mind, but then it's probably telling that I do not remember much about the actual sculpture but the fact that every so-and-so many minutes so-and-so many people were admitted into some room for so-and-so many minutes. All the time I was calculating how many people could possibly see this sculpture if the exhibition ran so-and-so long, and of course you could fancy yourself being one of the so-and-so many people on this earth, who had actually seen it. It sort of shortened the time I spent waiting, but once I was admitted these thoughts were so predominant that the actual thing became redundant, or let's say it could not quite live up to the thoughts surrounding it. A clever piece of advertisment though and something that reminded me of wasting time in a theme park ;)!

Either it's in the work itself and the spectator responds to it, or not.